Two More Construction Starts in China: Fangchenggang-3 and Tianwan-5

Saturday 2 January 2016

Two More Construction Starts in China: Fangchenggang-3 and Tianwan-5

2 January 2016

The Chinese nuclear industry squeezed three construction starts into the last month of 2015. After Fuquing-6, Fangchenggang-3 and Tianwan-5 got underway. This brings the number of new Chinese projects to six in the year 2015 and the total number of reactors under construction to 24. Thirty-one units are already in operation.

Construction began on the Fangchenggang unit 3 reactor with the start of pouring of the basemat concrete on 24 December2015, according to the China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN). The Fangchenggang project, located on the Qisha peninsula in Guangxi province and 45 km from the Vietnam border, is the third unit in China to use the Hualong One reactor design. On 16 December 2015, at the Executive Meeting of State Council chaired by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, it was announced that it had granted permission for the construction of two units of the Hualong One design at Fangchenggang.
The Hualong One design (HPR1000) is based on the CGN ACPR-1000 design, a more advanced version of CGN’s Generation II CPR-1000 and the China National Nuclear Corporation’s ACP-1000 designs. In November 2015, an agreement was reached between the CGN and Argentina for the export of the Hualong One design. CGN intends that the Fangchenggang units 3 and 4 will be the reference reactors for the potential construction of the Bradwell B plant in the UK.

Construction began at the Tianwan reactor unit 5 on 27 December 2015 with the concreting of the base slab for the reactor building, according to the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). On December 16 2015 at the Executive Meeting of State Council chaired by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang it was announced that it had granted permission for the construction of two more units at Tianwan (and Fangchenggang). These units will feature 1,080 MWe ACPR-1000 reactors and will be 50 percent owned by China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), 30 percent by China Power Investment and 20 percent by Jiangsu Guoxin Asset Management Group. As a result of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, construction of the Tianwan reactor units 5 and 6 had been postponed. Each 1,080 MW Tianwan reactor, will use CNNCs upgraded version of the M310 reactor design, based on the Gravelines reactor units 5 and 6 in France, that were commissioned in 1984 and 1985 respectively.
Three reactors are now under construction at the Tianwan site, in Jiangsu province on the Yellow Sea, eastern China, which already hosts two operating reactors. Tianwan reactor unit 5 is due to enter commercial operation in December 2020 and reactor unit 6 in October 2021.
In a 2012 survey of local public opinion, a majority (54%) expressed opposition to building nuclear reactors at Tianwan due to safety concerns.

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